Peter Stoney sez more jobs and smog

This week's man in the climate is, like Myron Ebell, a neo-liberal rent-a-mouth capable of generating neat horseflop at the drop of a dime.

I mean, a man who can say, on the question of port expansion, that "Liverpool would lose its competitive edge behind European ports like Rotterdam and Antwerp" as though the mass importers of Chinese products are going to shop around for a port in a different country, and then tele-port their goods back into Britain, has got to be nuts. Maybe those ports in Antwerp or San Francisco are saying the same about Liverpool, that they have to clear more land, breathe more smoke and diesel, drive more trucks at all hours of the day, all because Liverpool is going to expand. Let's say we don't do it -- all together.

Let's say we must eradicate this question, like a good little neo-con researcher who knows how to take the situation as it stands, and then say the exact opposite. Always throwing in some bogus arithmetic whenever possible.

The fact is the port owners care about two things: A. Money, and B. nothing else. They see their job as endeavouring to expand their capital whilst creating as few jobs as possible, paying as little as possible for them, and ignoring as much pollution as possible. As the narrow, conventional corporate business that they are, any positive impact they make on the local community is purely accidental and happens in spite of their best efforts to squeeze every brass shilling out of the operation. Because this is unpopular, and because only democratic forces can stop this, they pay people to lie for them for the purpose of subverting the public interest.

Reporters should never interview crackpots like this. They should never permit them to dismiss tangible harm to human life as just another "green issue" like "birds and wildlife" obstructing the interests of commerce. If jobs or wealth are going to be created or destroyed, they should either take a statement on the record directly from the corporation involved, or interview someone who can present the facts without leaving anything we need to know out. They should not waste our time on someone who just makes up stuff as he goes along, following the rule that the corporation is always right. Mr "Admiral" Stoney has never seen a corporate interest he didn't like in the same way that Donald Rumsfeld has never seen a war he didn't like.

None of it matters. It'll all get washed away when the sea-level rises. The super-container ports, the lies, the criminally wasteful elite economics, as well as the rest of the human species if these stupid men are allowed to cling on until we all sink.